Give them a chance, it's still early! There too busy catching up with the list of who's currently using OSS. No doubt they'll be taking scheduled breaks from their "strategy" meetings to update the list so they can figure out who else they may want to have served a summons.
I don't know if anyone has posted this but I found it amusing. From planetquake3.net
"Sorry For Downtime
Posted by RogeR on Thursday, May 15 2003..."
"Sorry for the downtime everyone. Someone linked to PlanetQuake3.net on SlashDot.org and the mass traffic was and still is causing some issues with our webserver. Things are looking good now, so hopefully the server will hold up."
"Oxdung. A burglar won't get away with "but, your honour, his unlocked screen door was flapping in the wind, so I was able to go in his house without any effort"."
"Well, no. But that's because they're a burglar - they'd get charged with *theft*, but not breaking and entering. Which is why it's called breaking and entering, and not just uh... entering. =p"
I believe the term is called "Unlawful Entry". Pair this with a "Trespassing" violation, and if he had "anything in his possession (aka in his hand, bag, pocket, truck, car, bike, sock, underwear, etc...) then it's "Burglery" and "Possesion of Stolen Items" (if actually apprehended outside of the house - but witnessed in or coming out of the house).
Dad was and Policeman for 30+ years! Try growing up the the seventies as a long haired heavy metal musician in my house - you learn the law quick... One way or the other (lol).
The problem with this is A) she's the best part of the game. B) they kill her off. C) she's the best part of the game. D) They kill her off. (oops, I said that already didn't I?).
Well, your lucky if didn't play or buy the game, unlike myself. I am a ardent Unreal fan and player. I spent way too many hours with both the original Unreal and Unreal Tournament. Both of the v2 iteration, well,... sux (to put it bluntly).
I rarely buy games when they're first release. Usually I wait for both reviews and a price drop. But U2 was an exception. I bought the first day it hit the shelf for 59.99 and ~9 hours later I was very very disappointed to say the least. Eye candy was the only thing about it that was positive. Linear game play, flat and depressing story line, yadda, yadda.
Even more to the point was the official forums. This thing got hot, heavy, and nasty fast. The Legend admins/devs dropped out of sight within 48 hours after the release. The majority of the threads were overtly hostile and condemnatious. And with good reason. Legend blew it and took Epic along for the ride IMHO.
Consider yourself lucky. Especially if you had any fondness for the original series. The present offerings pale grossly in comparison to the innovative and captivating nature of their progenitors.
Pity so many waited for this. It didn't help anyone, the developers or the players. The only ones that seemed to get anything from this was the marketing and advertising departments - and that too was short lived.
Two reason that reseachers and now the D.O.D. make the statement that women are in some ways better suited to be fighter pilots are:
A) Women, for a myriad of reasons, are better able to cope in both a high negative and positve "G" (read gravity) environment and are less likely to experience red and/or black outs under high G conditions.
B) Though, current theory based on a substantial amount of research over the years does give some credibility to the postulate related to how women process visual information in regards to spatial and distance discernent, the other factor that women have is the belief that they have a far higher degree of color differentiation then their male counterparts. This is significant in terms of target/craft recognition. In otherwords, at 30,000 feet, through the haze women are more often able to spot a target (often a mere speck in anyones visual field) before their male counterparts do.
I aerial combat see first, shoot first is often the only thing that seperates those that fly home and those that auger in.
lol. When I lived in San Diego (which was for 30+ yrs). They had an amusement park that had tanks that sat 2 ppl. One drove the tank and the other operated the turret. It had panels on the sides that would disable the drive for a a short time and panels on the turret that would disable the turret gun. You would score points for disabling the tanks. I remember it was an absolute blast. The gun in the turret shot tennis balls. I remember one time I got lucky and shot a ball into the barrel of the other tank (no kidding). The two of use in the turrets just looked at each other cause we could figure out just what had happened. Well, he shot back (that's how we figure out my ball went in the barrel). The gun doesn't work too well when it shoots two balls, it was air powered IIRC.
It was great fun. I'm moving back to S.D in August. I wonder if that place is still up and running?
I'll just run right out and buy a Windows verson so I can get the data files. Then copy all the data files to a linux dir and then install the beta. This is great, I can get the beta running just by getting the windows version... (scratches head).... So I can buy it again when the fullblown Linux client is out?
Sure, I can waste the money on two versions of the same game. I don't think they get it. The object is to make a Linux client so I don't have to do this crap...
Oh well, no NWN for me.
Re:Is there anywhere one can download SUSE?
on
SuSE 8.2 Announced
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· Score: 2, Interesting
It hasn't even been released yet. Just finishe betas for crying out loud (lol).
SuSE is a somewhat naive company in the way it forms alliance, makes choices, etc. They do not believe in strong spin or overbearing marketing. They do not believe in half-truth statements or downplaying their competitors. There may be exceptions to this (there's no single decisionmaker running the whole show), but as a general rule it holds.
But now the new CEO is a former head of a very successful and competitve branch of IBM. So, if anyone at SuSE has insight into what IBM may be planning - I would be him. And with his experience the market direction and focus is most likely changing.
Ok, it's been said that M$ actually doesn't do anything more than "wound" a company that it feels is a threat or has something it wants. Then they just sit back, wait for it to get financially desparate and buy it up for a pitance.
So, this could be analogous of a Shark and a diver. The shark doesn't rush in and start chomping on the diver. Instead the shark stealthfully attacks the diver from beneath, takes a sizable bite, then backs off. Now all it has to do is is wait a short while until the diver bleeds out and then it can eat at it's leasure without fear of getting damaged by a thrashing victim. Much in the way M$ does financially to it's competitors.
Now, one could say that SCO viewed it self as a diver in hostile waters, surrounded by sharks. So, they take out their knife and slash at the biggest shark they can (IBM) but in doing so the end up cutting themselves. Now the slash is called David Boies and this cut, along with IBMs legal team will bleed out SCO in court costs and attorney fees. Seems that once again SCO leadership has misjudged their environment and is destined to bleed themselves out.
IBM, if they have any desire to appropriate any of SCOs patents, will merely wait for SCO to become so weakened and despararte that when the time is right they can swoop in for the kill (a buyout at a fraction of what SCO may have thought possible).
Meanwhile all the other players in the water, that being United Linux/SuSE, the OSS devs/community, and just about everyone else are all climbing out of the this particular pond to watch SCO thrash around as the IBM bigfish circles around and around waiting for the right moment to make the kill. Don't be surprised if one of those that sought safety in the boat finds a long stick to give a push or two to keep SCO from coming to the surface.
In the meantime, if one listens carefully, they will probably be able to hear Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer snickering in the distance.
I have to agree. This will be a case of "my lawyers are bigger than your lawyers". I didn't see the statements in the breif that point out the misconceptions of the GPL, but I had already come to the conclusions that this is a money play by SCO. The problem with this angle is that before SCO gets any money they will have to pay alot first. And I dare say the IBMs pockets are considerably deeper than those of SCO.
Just using the old standard "file motions 'till you puke" will bury them in legal fees alone if they're not careful. IBM will most likely chew up every bit of SCOs money it can by dragging out the proceedings as far as possible. Then, I don't care how good Mr Bioes feels he is, as you said, the sheer wieght of numbers may be crushing.
All this will do is alienate SCO, damage any hope of further trust amonst their peers, and drive their business into the ground.
Frankly, I can't escape the feeling that there are ulterior motives behinds this outside of just filing a tort. Perhaps this is a way to force a hostile takeover, buyout, or something along those lines.
I just don't understand the logic behind this, but given SCOs track record of late - it does stay in character.
The DEA, CIA, and FBI, as well as a few other agencies have been using this technology to covertly bug those they wish to survey.
I can't remember where I read it, but the drug cartels got wind of this accidently. Seems someone had goggles/glasses that could pick up the light used by the laser. One day the noticed that there was a small dot on a window, walked outside, saw that the dot was caused by a beam, look down the other direction and saw that the beam was coming from a Van about 1/2 a block away. Needless to say their cover was blown.
So, to get an infinite loop going you stick a mirror infront of it and point it back on itself? And this gives a new meaning to being hacked. Just put a beam splitter in its path and send on down the line to it's distination and other to your reciever?
Since its sensitive to voltage changes, what would a lightening storm do to it? And what about the new terrorist threat - bringing down a network with a flash gernade?
Oh, and new zoning laws.
-"Im sorry, I know this area is commercially zoned, but we can't let you build your office building over 2 stories high now."
>"But, when I bought the property they said I could build a 6 story office building here without having to get a special permit, that's the law in California, what changed?"
- "Well sir, you can't build any higher than 2 stories because the guy next to you site has subscirbed to a optical carrier and his reciever is on the 3rd story, If we let you build the building your describing you would cut off his recieption."
> "Well, can't he put an antenea up to get compensate for this?"
- "Yes, he probably could, but that area isn't zoned for anteneas higher than 6 stories."
Ya, neat technology, but I can't see anyone really relying on to call 911. I can hear it now - "my uncle in Barstow died because he had a heart attack during a dust storm and we couldn't get through to 911".
Maybe, they'll find a use for it , but I can't see this for any sort of wide spread overland transmittions.
If what your saying has any truth to it (and I'm not saying it doesn't) then XBox is doomed to failure and M$ is destined to incur further financial lossed in their entertainment division. If Moore does for XBox what you suggest he did for the Game Cube then the entertainment branch is M$ will be a big fiscal black hole.
It baffles me that for being such an apparently shrewd and aggressive company that M$ has the reputation for being that they wouldn't clue into his track record! I mean hiring the CEO of a failed business campaign to run a struggling start up in the console market seems foolish at best. Perhaps it's a case of a "good ol' boys" network - when they work they work well and when they don't they flopped hard on the ground and often times with a fair amount of collateral damage (in cases such as these refer to sig:) ).
Ever play Unreal? At the time it came out it was one of the most interesting and captivating games of it's time. I took the FPS and put vast and explorable maps and a sublime and unspoken plot behind it.
At it's heart it was nothing more than an FPS -but the eye candy of the time made it visually beautiful. The story, though simple emulated the characters situation more by what wasn't presented than by what was. It was simple, by happen stance your morooned on a alien world. Alone, clueless and surrounded by beauty, hostiles, and an unfolding story of a world of peaceful natives dominated by another alien race that have no compunction what so ever in fragging your ass - the mission stay alive, find out what the hell is going on, and get off the planet alive. In the playing of the game you learn the plight of the crew, the natives, and in turn how to help yourself by following the source of this places plight to the center and in doing so escape.
The player interaction with the environment was not so much scripted as free form. There were secrets to be sure, but also a moral factor, such as intervening when the alien Skaar would attack the benevolent Nali by drawing the attackers attention to yourself - and reaping the reward at time that the grateful Nali would afford you. Likewise, if too weak, on could use the Nali (if the circumstance arose) to deflect an attack away from yourself so the attacker would focus on the native and you could escape unharmed.
The Original game was full of these sorts of aspects and much more. So was it any surprise, given the large cult following the ensued, that the faithful waited quitely for the next version to be made and released. The same holds true for Unreal Tournament - an extremely popular multiplayer version of the Original Unreal series.
Well, Unreal Tournament 2003 was released with mixed reviews. It didn't have the same appeal because it seemed more like a console game ported to the PC, it vainly tried to be original but lost many of the aspects that the orginal had while trying to "innovate" the graphics and technology - the game however was essentially a bad imitation of the original in many peoples view - and sales and online populations are no where near what the original games had.
Now, Unreal 2 is slated for release. The faithful anxiously await the release and I was to be counted among them. I picked up Unreal 2 the day it was put on the store shelve. I went home to install and climb into a world of fantasy and intrigue. Well, first it ran like a beta - EAX crashes galore. Frame rates for a 1.5 gig Athlon XP with a GF3-ti200 were dismal. No settings would change this. Turn all the glitze and glamour off. No AA or AF. No trilinear filtering or any setting above mid, switched to low, and the same results.
Now, I get this beast working somewhat - despite it's many and blaring problems. 12 missions into it and it's over! I look around the game and various sites to get insight into what this game is all about. It's preported to be 23 missions. But wait! 11 of the missions are extensive cut scenes. Taking place on the mothership, the "the base of operations". The storyline is very linear and the player feels as if he/she is more along for the ride then actually interacting with the game - dissappointment abounds. The official infogrames forums are a plethora of flames. The moderator (many of which are the developers and project heads) have become onminously quiet and post no comments or answer any querries.
Many people are short of full out enragement about the short playing time of the game verses the cost. Between 6 to 12 hours of game play vs $49.99 price tag - many finish it in a weekend (bought late afternoon on Friday and finished midday Sunday). An unusual amount of posted along the lines of "Where's the line to get my money back" and "Release a patch you cheap bastards". Not what one would consider garnering further partonage or brand loyality.
Many did not expect the game to be a rehash of the original, but just as many expected it to consist of at least some of the aspects of the original. Vast expanses to explore, mysteries to solve and unravel, and many many hours of playing time in an immersive world. They were baffled by such things and the 5 or 6 hatchings in the mothership that opened to nowhere, or next to nowhere (leading to a ladder that went to a level under the decks with nothing there but a panel that opened to... nothing).
I have talked about what Unreal 2 was not, but let's talk about what it is. It is visually stunning. The graphics engine is spectacular. Eye candy abounds. The facial expressions, the shadows, the textures, and many many more things. It is truely a step forward in 3D graphics. But, unfortunately that's all it is. The mapping is painfully linear, as is the storyline and game play. There is no divergence from the plot, no alternate paths in the storyline, maps or decisions a player might find interesting aren't there - it's flat. Furthermore, what plot it has is predictable and depressing. They spend half the game in character development only to kill of the crew, and this after one of the few successful atempts to involve the player and draw them in. This too made many of the gamers quite upset. And the end.... It ends with no point, no succuss, no conclusion, and the hero (you the player) is left to a mundane and unsatisifying feelling of defeat and futilism at the end.
This is not my opinion, but those of the vast majority of the few thousand posts in the Ureal 2 official forum.
As a business goes this is folly to say the least. Infogrames, Legend, and unfortunately "Epic" have done more to annoy their fans then to engender further patronage in there offerings and products. Sony is the parent company. Many feel that Sony is behind the direction that was ultimately pushed on the developers. Whether or not this is true the bottom line is this. A fair percentage of those that were averant fans of the Unreal and Unreal Tournament series are completely disenchanted with the latest and greatest offered up in the series.
There is a distinct negativity towards the developers and the companies. I strongly suspect that many will avoid purchasing any future release from Legend and Epic, as well as Infogrames and Sony.
What mystifies me is what led them to believe their present offerings were going to be successful. There's little innovation outside of the graphics work. They don't seem to place any emphasis on a story or plot. It seeem more about make stunning graphics as if one didn't need to have a point to the game - however simple.
I can't help but feel, especially with UT2k3 and more so with Unreal 2, that someone somewhere in these organizations believes that they need to market to those with a short attention span that are more interested in glitze than content. They have bombed. And if they continue to create products such as these last two they will soon be going belly up if the indication regarding their reception are used to gauge the clients desire for what they create.
Blackley hits the nail on the head: "The number one problem we have with design is that we don't know who we are designing for" when commenting on the design process. And I think his statement that the focus is in his question:
"Are we designing for ourselves? Are we designing for publishers? Are we designing for EB salespeople? Are we assigning for reviewers? Are we assigning for the audience? The problem right now is that we're designing for publishers and not the audience."
I have to agree with him on many of his points. And if these companies keep this up - then let the publishers buy these game because I'm not!
I'm an end user, don't know how to code. It have been using Linux for about 4 years. I first got a look at Linux when a friend gave me a RedHat 5.2 disk. Of course the default desktop/WM was Gnome. I seemed ok, I had to learn to use it but I knew this before I even installed the OS. Ok, so now I'm going to try to "get into" Linux. I go down and buy Corel Linux becuase I've heard (at the time) that is was the most "user" friendly. So, I tinker and buy a big book about Corel Linux - I have the choice of many desktops and try them all. I find my self split between KDE and Gnome, but spend most of my time with Gnome because "It made sense to me"!
So, I get a little frustrated with Corel because I find out the the Deb way of doing things is more oriented to the Unix knowledgable and I'm in learning mode big time and am getting nowwhere. So, I get Mandrake - a KDE centric distro. I still had a functioning and useful Gnome interface and would often use both. I like many things about Gnome. It had some very nice programs/applets and I found them both useful and cogent. However, being a drone from the Windows world I found that I could figure things out in KDE a little better. I learned more about the way Linux worked and how to get things done in all aspects from configuring Nvidia drivers and installing games, to using word processors, to tweak/customizing my Desktop to do what I wanted to. This was in the days of Gnome 1.2 and when 1.4 came out I upgrade because I was hoping that it would be a bit better - and all in all it was.
Now, I get tired of Mandrake and decide to try SuSE 7.1. I learn that this is where the "division" between the KDE and Gnome camps becomes evident. In SuSE 7.1 Gnome worked as well as any other distro I used. But I noticed that there were a plethora of updates and refinements for KDE while Gnome only occasionally had new updates and fixes. So, I became KDE centric myself. It seemed to me that the level of development was going at a faster pace and tended to be more in line with my expectation about what I wanted from a desktop.
Well, as time went by, I became more and more disenchanted with Gnome. It seemed to become more obtuse and far less intuitive as time went by. Then the Eazel debacle and Nautilus. Frankly, I hate it. Nautilus is a pain for me. I also became quite upset with all the hype around Eazel and Nautilus especially since the main stream marketeers and "Industry" (read end-user/corporate centric) publications and advertisers were touting this as the Linux "desktop" break-in killer app. I never bought it and when Eazel folded and brought all the negative press about "Linux will never be mainstream" statements that cited Eazel and Nautilus as proof of this I was extremely unhappy - as a Linux advocate I felt this did more damage than good and honestly wish Eazel had never happened.
So, I tried Ximians desktop. It was far better IMHO than anything I tried from Gnome.org. Many of the things I tried from Gnome.org seemed broken, at least the Ximians product had a high degree of funtionality. The only thing that bothered me about Ximian was it tended to take over in situations I didn't want it to. I also gave up in Gnome because I personally didn't find the "help" and "howtos" to very useful. The documentation for an end-user is next to useless IMHO. All I get is instructions about how to turn on features. Trouble shooting is not mentioned very often and configuration of the deeper aspect of Gnome is lacking to say the least - unless you want to go straight to coding - no middle ground. It's either how to set the view or developers pages that focus on contibuting to the Gnome project.
Ok, so now Gnome 2 is due out. I've been waiting with my fingers crossed for a while. I always like the "look" of Gnome. It's elegant and smooth. I just never like the fact that they made it so hard for someone as myself to get things done under the hood. KDE allowed me to do this and many that I've talked to prefer KDE as end-user.
I don't want a Windblows clone. However, certain aspect of a gui are fairly universal. What I find in Gnome to is that it is less than easy to use. It is broken - I learned to understand Sawfish. I was very disappointed when Sawfish with Gnome was broken. At first I thought it was because I used SuSE, but after searching the developers forums I came to the conclusion that Sawfish was indeed broken as evident by many of the devs statements regarding this.
Nautilus and MetaCity are very unfriendly as far as I'm concerned. I can't get the damn thing to work most of the time. I tried to get Sawfish2 to work but no luck. I have given up on Gnome for the time being. I spend too much time trying to get it to work rather then just "doing work". I have become very comfortable and fond of KDE. But a problem still exists for me. Choice! Yes choice. I may choose not to use Gnome, but I would rather make that decision because I found a WM I like to use based on how one works in deference to the other - not because the other works poorly or in some cases not at all. Sure, KDE is far from perfect but I can spend more time doing the things I need to rather than trying to figure out why one is not working or giving me messages like the help files don't have a program to view them and then no information on how to set this up or any other workaround.
Gnome being in the state it is at present isn't an option for me. Many of the apps are great, e.g. Grip - fast, easy, effective, and the same can be said for GnomeMeeting, Galeon, Evolution, etc. But, the desktop itself isn't cutting it IMHO. Theres seems to be an underlying consensus that those at the Gnome development camp are in a quandry of sorts. I was surprised to say the least when I heard that the Gnome developers contacted those at the KDE camp to work in interoperablitly and common interface issues. Not that this is a good or bad Idea, but given the rivalry of the past few couple of years I was taken aback.
I would really like to see Gnome come back to the full and well rounded Desktop that both gurus and end-users could be comfortable with - at present, unless your very well versed in code and config Gnome is essentially the least attractive option IMHO
No, flame intended - If you Like Gnome use it becuase for me that's what Linux is all about - Choice and Functionality.
Re:Simple economics and the RIAA - Addendum.
on
The Future of the CD
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· Score: 1
Now, some may ask what my previous post has to do with the article? Well, it has to do with monopoly practices.
Consider this. Before CD burners, where could you find blank recordable CD disks? You couldn't! Why? You had no use for them. Now recordable CDs have existed ever since there have been CDs because the music we bought was placed on them - the only one' that used them were.... Yep - the record companies. They alone introduced the "Compact Disk". They did so to circumvent the use of cassete tapes. I often wonder if they saw the advent of the PC and the CD-R/RW drive.
Now, in steps the CDrom drive - no big deal. And you can listen to music on your computer - ok. Then comes the CD-R drives and shortly after CD-RW, so no hint of any disention from Hollywood and the RIAA faithful. Ok, bring on Napster - Now EVERYTHING CHANGES. As is well known you download of Napster, Convert to MP3, and then "burn" these to a CD-R and voila - you have free and portable music, just like you used to get at the store and essentially the same that made the Billions for the record companies.
Now, CD-R/RWs are a big problem, and everyone is familiar with the push to kill P2P and lock in the market again by passing legislation in the name of security (Palladium and TCPA, et al) and more stringent enforcement of copyright laws.
Now, does anyone honestly think for a minute that RIAA and friends want the 10x capacity of DVD-Rs to take off? Not on your life. Let's see, a DVD recorder, writable DVD media, and, will take Led Zeppelin for example (disbanded 20 years and selling a million/year), can you see where this is going. Two DVD-Rs and the complete (or nearly so) collection of Led Zeppelin written to these two disks! Ya, that's the ticket.
Now, take fat internet pipes. Be it DSL or Cable. Market analysis shows that this sector is increasing at a steady rate with no sign of slowing.
So, I have my P2P software, my DVD recorder and disks, and a 1.5Mbit pipe. I'll never need to buy another CD again if I don't want to. So, based on this assumption I don't see the adoption of recordable DVDs being helped in anyway shape of form by those in the recording industry.
Those in the recording industry doesn't just mean the recording companies themselves. It also includes the advertising, distribution, and the actual makers of the CDs themselves. Which puts another wrinkle into possible attempts to thwart the adoption of recordable DVDs. Let's say I own a very lucrative and successful company that makes CDs for Sony Corp and all their subsidiary music companies. Do you think I want to see a mass market for DVDs? Maybe in the future. But that means retooling, and alot of expense. My profits are down as it is because I'm not making as many prerecorded CDs as before due to the economy and lower music sales.
So, it's just not the RIAA music companies but a whole infrastructure built upon the current market strategy that feels threatened by DVDs recorders and disks, and the terror of mass acceptance and utilization by the consumer base instill in this infrastructure. I don't see them switching over DVD for music. I do expect to see a harder push to limit comsumer choice and doorways to new techhnologies in the form of more legislation and the mandate to people like M$ to further hasten their development of Palladium, TCPA, and other such technologies.
The only time these market entities see fit to endorse a given technology is when they feel confident that they can control the "keys" to the kingdom (or in this case the technology) and at this point they really don't even understand it and have shown that their ability to forcast the effects and impacts of these technologies on their markets is poor at best.
So, expect the CD disk to be around for a while at least - the powers that be will do their best to keep it so.
Simple economics and the RIAAs clients.
on
The Future of the CD
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· Score: 2, Interesting
Ok, lets look at things from a marketing drones perspective (not that I'm a marketing drone). So, years back some bright and talented marketing department took a look at the demographics and statics of the market base. Looking at the bell curve, one realizes that the percentile from, we'll use nice round numbers, 33% to 66% made the fat/mean part of the curve. This represents the buyer base that is likely to buy music CDs for around $7 to $10 bucks a pop. The upper 67% to 83% is likely to pay about $12 to, say, $17 per CD. Now, the record companies figured out that if they price CDs at around the $12 to $17 price range, especially after the records were dead and tapes unrealiable, that they could "drag" about ~10% to 15% percent of those people in the fat/mean part of the curve into the area of people willing to pay about $17 a pop. This, from all indications (reading certian recording business marketing publications) seems to have been what they did.
Now, this worked fairly well, considering there was little alternative if one wanted to buy music (pre-Napster). So, the have managed to "force" a shift in the market demographics and increase the popluation of those that will pay the price their asking by not offering alternatives and locking in the market (hints of price fixing?).
So, the.com boom is running, people are making money, and times are good - especially for those with expendable cash and a love of music. Now - NAPSTER. People that don't have expendable cash have a way to get cheap/free music, the demographics shift just a bit and a hint of revenue loss (but not nearly what the record companies claim) and the record companies see the writing on the wall. So the campaign beginnings to crush those that venture into and/or interfer with the market - especially that socialist idea of file sharing (no knock or praise of socialists per se).
But wait, the.com boom and high economic times becomes the.bomb, and over the next couple 3 years the market keeps tanking in one way or another. People lose their jobs and replace them with less lucrative positions, as well as the rise in the general unemployment figures. Pair this with companies and corporations being not as profitable and it all adds up to far less expendable financial resources. The record companies are feeling the pinch like everyone else and are still erked by that damn file sharing internet bullshit thing (can you see the execs taking double doses of Zantac and Maalox).
So, an investigation of the market statistics shows not only the fat/mean part of the curve shifting back to those that "might" be will to spend $7 to $10 a pop, but the shift of those that won't/can't pay $12 to $17 (now in the range of $15 to $20) and the books don't show those nice big "black" numbers they used to. Now, how to get control of the will of the buyers, especially in light of hard economic times and file sharing - "Hey don't we pay annual dues to the RIAA lobbying group" (say someone up top thinks), "why not put them to work and use this tool to force the market demographics back to where they were previously - if we make file sharing illegal and bring down anyone trying to market for profit in this arena as well we get a lock back on the market and gain price controls again".
The problem is that once the consumer base gets a taste of something they want for less they usually won't pay more later (standard economic inflationary forces withstanding).
So, blame the file sharers. Ignore the new market sector, ignore the economic factors. Put a face on the problem and call it P2P, get the RIAA to earn it's money in D.C. to get this crap shut down. This stance seems particularily true in light of the RIAA faithful suing Bertlesman regarding that system Napster they took down and now want to use as a market tool.
I mean really, the business model that the record companies are apparently holding to baffles me in light of their behavior to something you might think they would sieze ahold of, make their own and run run run. But, instead they seem stubornly obstinent regarding this unrealistic fixation of holding on to an out dated, and now out paced, business/market strategy.
They are going to lose. The question is - what damage will the do to themselves, the market, and Information/computer technologies and innovations in the process.
Frankly their just scape goating to explain away their incompetence in the "new economy".
Ok, so he's using an outdated PowerMac for who knows how long. Then he gets a spanking new ibook and has problems. Welcome to the world of computers. Many still use and rely on Mac's wares with similar issues and manage to solve them - did he see if there were any OS updates or patches before we decided to go on this journalistic tirade?
Apple is still very much on the NASDAQ radar considering what other high profile computer and technology companies are doing- Apple isn't doing that bad.
So, this guy is basically whining that he bought this ibook, didn't check to see if it was compatible with his pim, or whether any of the software he want would run on it? Sounds more like his firm bought it for him and he didn't want it so he'll write a column to bash it.
And his assertion that due to his experinces, not full compatiblity with previously owned products and buggy OS, is reason that Apple is destined for the.com scrap heap? If a buggy OS were a reason for product extinction then Microsoft should have completely fossilized by now.
Lovely, now journalist are using their forums to troll - pffft!
Slashdot Mirror
Is there any chance that Dr. Freeman and his crowbar will be available and onsite at runtime? You know.... Just in case!
More likely they want to get in on some of that free money and upgrades M$ has been passing out to the other foreign governments and agencies. :)
Give them a chance, it's still early! There too busy catching up with the list of who's currently using OSS. No doubt they'll be taking scheduled breaks from their "strategy" meetings to update the list so they can figure out who else they may want to have served a summons.
I don't know if anyone has posted this but I found it amusing. From planetquake3.net
:)
"Sorry For Downtime
Posted by RogeR on Thursday, May 15 2003..."
"Sorry for the downtime everyone. Someone linked to PlanetQuake3.net on SlashDot.org and the mass traffic was and still is causing some issues with our webserver. Things are looking good now, so hopefully the server will hold up."
Poor guys are getting slammed!
Cheers, Crusher.
"Oxdung. A burglar won't get away with "but, your honour, his unlocked screen door was flapping in the wind, so I was able to go in his house without any effort"."
"Well, no. But that's because they're a burglar - they'd get charged with *theft*, but not breaking and entering. Which is why it's called breaking and entering, and not just uh... entering. =p"
I believe the term is called "Unlawful Entry". Pair this with a "Trespassing" violation, and if he had "anything in his possession (aka in his hand, bag, pocket, truck, car, bike, sock, underwear, etc...) then it's "Burglery" and "Possesion of Stolen Items" (if actually apprehended outside of the house - but witnessed in or coming out of the house).
Dad was and Policeman for 30+ years! Try growing up the the seventies as a long haired heavy metal musician in my house - you learn the law quick... One way or the other (lol).
Cheers,
SPOILER::::
The problem with this is A) she's the best part of the game. B) they kill her off. C) she's the best part of the game. D) They kill her off. (oops, I said that already didn't I?).
Well, your lucky if didn't play or buy the game, unlike myself. I am a ardent Unreal fan and player. I spent way too many hours with both the original Unreal and Unreal Tournament. Both of the v2 iteration, well,... sux (to put it bluntly).
I rarely buy games when they're first release. Usually I wait for both reviews and a price drop. But U2 was an exception. I bought the first day it hit the shelf for 59.99 and ~9 hours later I was very very disappointed to say the least. Eye candy was the only thing about it that was positive. Linear game play, flat and depressing story line, yadda, yadda.
Even more to the point was the official forums. This thing got hot, heavy, and nasty fast. The Legend admins/devs dropped out of sight within 48 hours after the release. The majority of the threads were overtly hostile and condemnatious. And with good reason. Legend blew it and took Epic along for the ride IMHO.
Consider yourself lucky. Especially if you had any fondness for the original series. The present offerings pale grossly in comparison to the innovative and captivating nature of their progenitors.
Pity so many waited for this. It didn't help anyone, the developers or the players. The only ones that seemed to get anything from this was the marketing and advertising departments - and that too was short lived.
Two reason that reseachers and now the D.O.D. make the statement that women are in some ways better suited to be fighter pilots are:
A) Women, for a myriad of reasons, are better able to cope in both a high negative and positve "G" (read gravity) environment and are less likely to experience red and/or black outs under high G conditions.
B) Though, current theory based on a substantial amount of research over the years does give some credibility to the postulate related to how women process visual information in regards to spatial and distance discernent, the other factor that women have is the belief that they have a far higher degree of color differentiation then their male counterparts. This is significant in terms of target/craft recognition. In otherwords, at 30,000 feet, through the haze women are more often able to spot a target (often a mere speck in anyones visual field) before their male counterparts do.
I aerial combat see first, shoot first is often the only thing that seperates those that fly home and those that auger in.
lol. When I lived in San Diego (which was for 30+ yrs). They had an amusement park that had tanks that sat 2 ppl. One drove the tank and the other operated the turret. It had panels on the sides that would disable the drive for a a short time and panels on the turret that would disable the turret gun. You would score points for disabling the tanks. I remember it was an absolute blast. The gun in the turret shot tennis balls. I remember one time I got lucky and shot a ball into the barrel of the other tank (no kidding). The two of use in the turrets just looked at each other cause we could figure out just what had happened. Well, he shot back (that's how we figure out my ball went in the barrel). The gun doesn't work too well when it shoots two balls, it was air powered IIRC.
It was great fun. I'm moving back to S.D in August. I wonder if that place is still up and running?
Cheers.
I'll just run right out and buy a Windows verson so I can get the data files. Then copy all the data files to a linux dir and then install the beta. This is great, I can get the beta running just by getting the windows version... (scratches head).... So I can buy it again when the fullblown Linux client is out?
Sure, I can waste the money on two versions of the same game. I don't think they get it. The object is to make a Linux client so I don't have to do this crap...
Oh well, no NWN for me.
It hasn't even been released yet. Just finishe betas for crying out loud (lol).
Don't worry now, it has a default blue motif.
An error occured while loading http://mq.moo.net/Linux03/ScoSource-05_Story01.htm l:
/.'ed and I have to wait at least 24 hrs before I can get in.
Could not connect to host mq.moo.net
Slashdotted again! In fact every site I go to about this story is
Ah, can you feel the Love! (Ok, bad joke)
SuSE is a somewhat naive company in the way it forms alliance, makes choices, etc. They do not believe in strong spin or overbearing marketing. They do not believe in half-truth statements or downplaying their competitors. There may be exceptions to this (there's no single decisionmaker running the whole show), but as a general rule it holds.
But now the new CEO is a former head of a very successful and competitve branch of IBM. So, if anyone at SuSE has insight into what IBM may be planning - I would be him. And with his experience the market direction and focus is most likely changing.
SCO would undoubtedly sue them though, claiming that it was impossible for a consortium to work without stealing something from SCO.
:-/
Didn't SCO invent Linux? No... wait! I got confused, I was thinking about that Al Gore and the internet thing.
Ok, it's been said that M$ actually doesn't do anything more than "wound" a company that it feels is a threat or has something it wants. Then they just sit back, wait for it to get financially desparate and buy it up for a pitance.
So, this could be analogous of a Shark and a diver. The shark doesn't rush in and start chomping on the diver. Instead the shark stealthfully attacks the diver from beneath, takes a sizable bite, then backs off. Now all it has to do is is wait a short while until the diver bleeds out and then it can eat at it's leasure without fear of getting damaged by a thrashing victim. Much in the way M$ does financially to it's competitors.
Now, one could say that SCO viewed it self as a diver in hostile waters, surrounded by sharks. So, they take out their knife and slash at the biggest shark they can (IBM) but in doing so the end up cutting themselves. Now the slash is called David Boies and this cut, along with IBMs legal team will bleed out SCO in court costs and attorney fees. Seems that once again SCO leadership has misjudged their environment and is destined to bleed themselves out.
IBM, if they have any desire to appropriate any of SCOs patents, will merely wait for SCO to become so weakened and despararte that when the time is right they can swoop in for the kill (a buyout at a fraction of what SCO may have thought possible).
Meanwhile all the other players in the water, that being United Linux/SuSE, the OSS devs/community, and just about everyone else are all climbing out of the this particular pond to watch SCO thrash around as the IBM bigfish circles around and around waiting for the right moment to make the kill. Don't be surprised if one of those that sought safety in the boat finds a long stick to give a push or two to keep SCO from coming to the surface.
In the meantime, if one listens carefully, they will probably be able to hear Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer snickering in the distance.
I have to agree. This will be a case of "my lawyers are bigger than your lawyers". I didn't see the statements in the breif that point out the misconceptions of the GPL, but I had already come to the conclusions that this is a money play by SCO. The problem with this angle is that before SCO gets any money they will have to pay alot first. And I dare say the IBMs pockets are considerably deeper than those of SCO.
Just using the old standard "file motions 'till you puke" will bury them in legal fees alone if they're not careful. IBM will most likely chew up every bit of SCOs money it can by dragging out the proceedings as far as possible. Then, I don't care how good Mr Bioes feels he is, as you said, the sheer wieght of numbers may be crushing.
All this will do is alienate SCO, damage any hope of further trust amonst their peers, and drive their business into the ground.
Frankly, I can't escape the feeling that there are ulterior motives behinds this outside of just filing a tort. Perhaps this is a way to force a hostile takeover, buyout, or something along those lines.
I just don't understand the logic behind this, but given SCOs track record of late - it does stay in character.
The DEA, CIA, and FBI, as well as a few other agencies have been using this technology to covertly bug those they wish to survey.
I can't remember where I read it, but the drug cartels got wind of this accidently. Seems someone had goggles/glasses that could pick up the light used by the laser. One day the noticed that there was a small dot on a window, walked outside, saw that the dot was caused by a beam, look down the other direction and saw that the beam was coming from a Van about 1/2 a block away.
Needless to say their cover was blown.
So, to get an infinite loop going you stick a mirror infront of it and point it back on itself? And this gives a new meaning to being hacked. Just put a beam splitter in its path and send on down the line to it's distination and other to your reciever?
Since its sensitive to voltage changes, what would a lightening storm do to it? And what about the new terrorist threat - bringing down a network with a flash gernade?
Oh, and new zoning laws.
-"Im sorry, I know this area is commercially zoned, but we can't let you build your office building over 2 stories high now."
>"But, when I bought the property they said I could build a 6 story office building here without having to get a special permit, that's the law in California, what changed?"
- "Well sir, you can't build any higher than 2 stories because the guy next to you site has subscirbed to a optical carrier and his reciever is on the 3rd story, If we let you build the building your describing you would cut off his recieption."
> "Well, can't he put an antenea up to get compensate for this?"
- "Yes, he probably could, but that area isn't zoned for anteneas higher than 6 stories."
Ya, neat technology, but I can't see anyone really relying on to call 911. I can hear it now - "my uncle in Barstow died because he had a heart attack during a dust storm and we couldn't get through to 911".
Maybe, they'll find a use for it , but I can't see this for any sort of wide spread overland transmittions.
Once agian, refer to sig!
If what your saying has any truth to it (and I'm not saying it doesn't) then XBox is doomed to failure and M$ is destined to incur further financial lossed in their entertainment division. If Moore does for XBox what you suggest he did for the Game Cube then the entertainment branch is M$ will be a big fiscal black hole.
:) ).
It baffles me that for being such an apparently shrewd and aggressive company that M$ has the reputation for being that they wouldn't clue into his track record! I mean hiring the CEO of a failed business campaign to run a struggling start up in the console market seems foolish at best. Perhaps it's a case of a "good ol' boys" network - when they work they work well and when they don't they flopped hard on the ground and often times with a fair amount of collateral damage (in cases such as these refer to sig
Ever play Unreal? At the time it came out it was one of the most interesting and captivating games of it's time. I took the FPS and put vast and explorable maps and a sublime and unspoken plot behind it.
At it's heart it was nothing more than an FPS -but the eye candy of the time made it visually beautiful. The story, though simple emulated the characters situation more by what wasn't presented than by what was. It was simple, by happen stance your morooned on a alien world. Alone, clueless and surrounded by beauty, hostiles, and an unfolding story of a world of peaceful natives dominated by another alien race that have no compunction what so ever in fragging your ass - the mission stay alive, find out what the hell is going on, and get off the planet alive. In the playing of the game you learn the plight of the crew, the natives, and in turn how to help yourself by following the source of this places plight to the center and in doing so escape.
The player interaction with the environment was not so much scripted as free form. There were secrets to be sure, but also a moral factor, such as intervening when the alien Skaar would attack the benevolent Nali by drawing the attackers attention to yourself - and reaping the reward at time that the grateful Nali would afford you. Likewise, if too weak, on could use the Nali (if the circumstance arose) to deflect an attack away from yourself so the attacker would focus on the native and you could escape unharmed.
The Original game was full of these sorts of aspects and much more. So was it any surprise, given the large cult following the ensued, that the faithful waited quitely for the next version to be made and released. The same holds true for Unreal Tournament - an extremely popular multiplayer version of the Original Unreal series.
Well, Unreal Tournament 2003 was released with mixed reviews. It didn't have the same appeal because it seemed more like a console game ported to the PC, it vainly tried to be original but lost many of the aspects that the orginal had while trying to "innovate" the graphics and technology - the game however was essentially a bad imitation of the original in many peoples view - and sales and online populations are no where near what the original games had.
Now, Unreal 2 is slated for release. The faithful anxiously await the release and I was to be counted among them. I picked up Unreal 2 the day it was put on the store shelve. I went home to install and climb into a world of fantasy and intrigue. Well, first it ran like a beta - EAX crashes galore. Frame rates for a 1.5 gig Athlon XP with a GF3-ti200 were dismal. No settings would change this. Turn all the glitze and glamour off. No AA or AF. No trilinear filtering or any setting above mid, switched to low, and the same results.
Now, I get this beast working somewhat - despite it's many and blaring problems. 12 missions into it and it's over! I look around the game and various sites to get insight into what this game is all about. It's preported to be 23 missions. But wait! 11 of the missions are extensive cut scenes. Taking place on the mothership, the "the base of operations". The storyline is very linear and the player feels as if he/she is more along for the ride then actually interacting with the game - dissappointment abounds. The official infogrames forums are a plethora of flames. The moderator (many of which are the developers and project heads) have become onminously quiet and post no comments or answer any querries.
Many people are short of full out enragement about the short playing time of the game verses the cost. Between 6 to 12 hours of game play vs $49.99 price tag - many finish it in a weekend (bought late afternoon on Friday and finished midday Sunday). An unusual amount of posted along the lines of "Where's the line to get my money back" and "Release a patch you cheap bastards". Not what one would consider garnering further partonage or brand loyality.
Many did not expect the game to be a rehash of the original, but just as many expected it to consist of at least some of the aspects of the original. Vast expanses to explore, mysteries to solve and unravel, and many many hours of playing time in an immersive world. They were baffled by such things and the 5 or 6 hatchings in the mothership that opened to nowhere, or next to nowhere (leading to a ladder that went to a level under the decks with nothing there but a panel that opened to... nothing).
I have talked about what Unreal 2 was not, but let's talk about what it is. It is visually stunning. The graphics engine is spectacular. Eye candy abounds. The facial expressions, the shadows, the textures, and many many more things. It is truely a step forward in 3D graphics. But, unfortunately that's all it is. The mapping is painfully linear, as is the storyline and game play. There is no divergence from the plot, no alternate paths in the storyline, maps or decisions a player might find interesting aren't there - it's flat. Furthermore, what plot it has is predictable and depressing. They spend half the game in character development only to kill of the crew, and this after one of the few successful atempts to involve the player and draw them in. This too made many of the gamers quite upset. And the end.... It ends with no point, no succuss, no conclusion, and the hero (you the player) is left to a mundane and unsatisifying feelling of defeat and futilism at the end.
This is not my opinion, but those of the vast majority of the few thousand posts in the Ureal 2 official forum.
As a business goes this is folly to say the least. Infogrames, Legend, and unfortunately "Epic" have done more to annoy their fans then to engender further patronage in there offerings and products. Sony is the parent company. Many feel that Sony is behind the direction that was ultimately pushed on the developers. Whether or not this is true the bottom line is this. A fair percentage of those that were averant fans of the Unreal and Unreal Tournament series are completely disenchanted with the latest and greatest offered up in the series.
There is a distinct negativity towards the developers and the companies. I strongly suspect that many will avoid purchasing any future release from Legend and Epic, as well as Infogrames and Sony.
What mystifies me is what led them to believe their present offerings were going to be successful. There's little innovation outside of the graphics work. They don't seem to place any emphasis on a story or plot. It seeem more about make stunning graphics as if one didn't need to have a point to the game - however simple.
I can't help but feel, especially with UT2k3 and more so with Unreal 2, that someone somewhere in these organizations believes that they need to market to those with a short attention span that are more interested in glitze than content. They have bombed. And if they continue to create products such as these last two they will soon be going belly up if the indication regarding their reception are used to gauge the clients desire for what they create.
Blackley hits the nail on the head: "The number one problem we have with design is that we don't know who we are designing for" when commenting on the design process. And I think his statement that the focus is in his question:
"Are we designing for ourselves? Are we designing for publishers? Are we designing for EB salespeople? Are we assigning for reviewers? Are we assigning for the audience? The problem right now is that we're designing for publishers and not the audience."
I have to agree with him on many of his points. And if these companies keep this up - then let the publishers buy these game because I'm not!
Just my humble opinion.
I'm an end user, don't know how to code. It have been using Linux for about 4 years. I first got a look at Linux when a friend gave me a RedHat 5.2 disk. Of course the default desktop/WM was Gnome. I seemed ok, I had to learn to use it but I knew this before I even installed the OS. Ok, so now I'm going to try to "get into" Linux. I go down and buy Corel Linux becuase I've heard (at the time) that is was the most "user" friendly. So, I tinker and buy a big book about Corel Linux - I have the choice of many desktops and try them all. I find my self split between KDE and Gnome, but spend most of my time with Gnome because "It made sense to me"!
So, I get a little frustrated with Corel because I find out the the Deb way of doing things is more oriented to the Unix knowledgable and I'm in learning mode big time and am getting nowwhere. So, I get Mandrake - a KDE centric distro. I still had a functioning and useful Gnome interface and would often use both. I like many things about Gnome. It had some very nice programs/applets and I found them both useful and cogent. However, being a drone from the Windows world I found that I could figure things out in KDE a little better. I learned more about the way Linux worked and how to get things done in all aspects from configuring Nvidia drivers and installing games, to using word processors, to tweak/customizing my Desktop to do what I wanted to. This was in the days of Gnome 1.2 and when 1.4 came out I upgrade because I was hoping that it would be a bit better - and all in all it was.
Now, I get tired of Mandrake and decide to try SuSE 7.1. I learn that this is where the "division" between the KDE and Gnome camps becomes evident. In SuSE 7.1 Gnome worked as well as any other distro I used. But I noticed that there were a plethora of updates and refinements for KDE while Gnome only occasionally had new updates and fixes. So, I became KDE centric myself. It seemed to me that the level of development was going at a faster pace and tended to be more in line with my expectation about what I wanted from a desktop.
Well, as time went by, I became more and more disenchanted with Gnome. It seemed to become more obtuse and far less intuitive as time went by. Then the Eazel debacle and Nautilus. Frankly, I hate it. Nautilus is a pain for me. I also became quite upset with all the hype around Eazel and Nautilus especially since the main stream marketeers and "Industry" (read end-user/corporate centric) publications and advertisers were touting this as the Linux "desktop" break-in killer app. I never bought it and when Eazel folded and brought all the negative press about "Linux will never be mainstream" statements that cited Eazel and Nautilus as proof of this I was extremely unhappy - as a Linux advocate I felt this did more damage than good and honestly wish Eazel had never happened.
So, I tried Ximians desktop. It was far better IMHO than anything I tried from Gnome.org. Many of the things I tried from Gnome.org seemed broken, at least the Ximians product had a high degree of funtionality. The only thing that bothered me about Ximian was it tended to take over in situations I didn't want it to. I also gave up in Gnome because I personally didn't find the "help" and "howtos" to very useful. The documentation for an end-user is next to useless IMHO. All I get is instructions about how to turn on features. Trouble shooting is not mentioned very often and configuration of the deeper aspect of Gnome is lacking to say the least - unless you want to go straight to coding - no middle ground. It's either how to set the view or developers pages that focus on contibuting to the Gnome project.
Ok, so now Gnome 2 is due out. I've been waiting with my fingers crossed for a while. I always like the "look" of Gnome. It's elegant and smooth. I just never like the fact that they made it so hard for someone as myself to get things done under the hood. KDE allowed me to do this and many that I've talked to prefer KDE as end-user.
I don't want a Windblows clone. However, certain aspect of a gui are fairly universal. What I find in Gnome to is that it is less than easy to use. It is broken - I learned to understand Sawfish. I was very disappointed when Sawfish with Gnome was broken. At first I thought it was because I used SuSE, but after searching the developers forums I came to the conclusion that Sawfish was indeed broken as evident by many of the devs statements regarding this.
Nautilus and MetaCity are very unfriendly as far as I'm concerned. I can't get the damn thing to work most of the time. I tried to get Sawfish2 to work but no luck. I have given up on Gnome for the time being. I spend too much time trying to get it to work rather then just "doing work". I have become very comfortable and fond of KDE. But a problem still exists for me. Choice! Yes choice. I may choose not to use Gnome, but I would rather make that decision because I found a WM I like to use based on how one works in deference to the other - not because the other works poorly or in some cases not at all. Sure, KDE is far from perfect but I can spend more time doing the things I need to rather than trying to figure out why one is not working or giving me messages like the help files don't have a program to view them and then no information on how to set this up or any other workaround.
Gnome being in the state it is at present isn't an option for me. Many of the apps are great, e.g. Grip - fast, easy, effective, and the same can be said for GnomeMeeting, Galeon, Evolution, etc. But, the desktop itself isn't cutting it IMHO.
Theres seems to be an underlying consensus that those at the Gnome development camp are in a quandry of sorts. I was surprised to say the least when I heard that the Gnome developers contacted those at the KDE camp to work in interoperablitly and common interface issues. Not that this is a good or bad Idea, but given the rivalry of the past few couple of years I was taken aback.
I would really like to see Gnome come back to the full and well rounded Desktop that both gurus and end-users could be comfortable with - at present, unless your very well versed in code and config Gnome is essentially the least attractive option IMHO
No, flame intended - If you Like Gnome use it becuase for me that's what Linux is all about - Choice and Functionality.
Now, some may ask what my previous post has to do with the article? Well, it has to do with monopoly practices.
Consider this. Before CD burners, where could you find blank recordable CD disks? You couldn't! Why? You had no use for them. Now recordable CDs have existed ever since there have been CDs because the music we bought was placed on them - the only one' that used them were.... Yep - the record companies. They alone introduced the "Compact Disk". They did so to circumvent the use of cassete tapes. I often wonder if they saw the advent of the PC and the CD-R/RW drive.
Now, in steps the CDrom drive - no big deal. And you can listen to music on your computer - ok. Then comes the CD-R drives and shortly after CD-RW, so no hint of any disention from Hollywood and the RIAA faithful. Ok, bring on Napster - Now EVERYTHING CHANGES. As is well known you download of Napster, Convert to MP3, and then "burn" these to a CD-R and voila - you have free and portable music, just like you used to get at the store and essentially the same that made the Billions for the record companies.
Now, CD-R/RWs are a big problem, and everyone is familiar with the push to kill P2P and lock in the market again by passing legislation in the name of security (Palladium and TCPA, et al) and more stringent enforcement of copyright laws.
Now, does anyone honestly think for a minute that RIAA and friends want the 10x capacity of DVD-Rs to take off? Not on your life. Let's see, a DVD recorder, writable DVD media, and, will take Led Zeppelin for example (disbanded 20 years and selling a million/year), can you see where this is going. Two DVD-Rs and the complete (or nearly so) collection of Led Zeppelin written to these two disks! Ya, that's the ticket.
Now, take fat internet pipes. Be it DSL or Cable. Market analysis shows that this sector is increasing at a steady rate with no sign of slowing.
So, I have my P2P software, my DVD recorder and disks, and a 1.5Mbit pipe. I'll never need to buy another CD again if I don't want to. So, based on this assumption I don't see the adoption of recordable DVDs being helped in anyway shape of form by those in the recording industry.
Those in the recording industry doesn't just mean the recording companies themselves. It also includes the advertising, distribution, and the actual makers of the CDs themselves. Which puts another wrinkle into possible attempts to thwart the adoption of recordable DVDs. Let's say I own a very lucrative and successful company that makes CDs for Sony Corp and all their subsidiary music companies. Do you think I want to see a mass market for DVDs? Maybe in the future. But that means retooling, and alot of expense. My profits are down as it is because I'm not making as many prerecorded CDs as before due to the economy and lower music sales.
So, it's just not the RIAA music companies but a whole infrastructure built upon the current market strategy that feels threatened by DVDs recorders and disks, and the terror of mass acceptance and utilization by the consumer base instill in this infrastructure. I don't see them switching over DVD for music. I do expect to see a harder push to limit comsumer choice and doorways to new techhnologies in the form of more legislation and the mandate to people like M$ to further hasten their development of Palladium, TCPA, and other such technologies.
The only time these market entities see fit to endorse a given technology is when they feel confident that they can control the "keys" to the kingdom (or in this case the technology) and at this point they really don't even understand it and have shown that their ability to forcast the effects and impacts of these technologies on their markets is poor at best.
So, expect the CD disk to be around for a while at least - the powers that be will do their best to keep it so.
Ok, lets look at things from a marketing drones perspective (not that I'm a marketing drone). So, years back some bright and talented marketing department took a look at the demographics and statics of the market base. Looking at the bell curve, one realizes that the percentile from, we'll use nice round numbers, 33% to 66% made the fat/mean part of the curve. This represents the buyer base that is likely to buy music CDs for around $7 to $10 bucks a pop. The upper 67% to 83% is likely to pay about $12 to, say, $17 per CD. Now, the record companies figured out that if they price CDs at around the $12 to $17 price range, especially after the records were dead and tapes unrealiable, that they could "drag" about ~10% to 15% percent of those people in the fat/mean part of the curve into the area of people willing to pay about $17 a pop. This, from all indications (reading certian recording business marketing publications) seems to have been what they did.
.com boom is running, people are making money, and times are good - especially for those with expendable cash and a love of music. Now - NAPSTER. People that don't have expendable cash have a way to get cheap/free music, the demographics shift just a bit and a hint of revenue loss (but not nearly what the record companies claim) and the record companies see the writing on the wall. So the campaign beginnings to crush those that venture into and/or interfer with the market - especially that socialist idea of file sharing (no knock or praise of socialists per se).
.com boom and high economic times becomes the .bomb, and over the next couple 3 years the market keeps tanking in one way or another. People lose their jobs and replace them with less lucrative positions, as well as the rise in the general unemployment figures. Pair this with companies and corporations being not as profitable and it all adds up to far less expendable financial resources. The record companies are feeling the pinch like everyone else and are still erked by that damn file sharing internet bullshit thing (can you see the execs taking double doses of Zantac and Maalox).
Now, this worked fairly well, considering there was little alternative if one wanted to buy music (pre-Napster). So, the have managed to "force" a shift in the market demographics and increase the popluation of those that will pay the price their asking by not offering alternatives and locking in the market (hints of price fixing?).
So, the
But wait, the
So, an investigation of the market statistics shows not only the fat/mean part of the curve shifting back to those that "might" be will to spend $7 to $10 a pop, but the shift of those that won't/can't pay $12 to $17 (now in the range of $15 to $20) and the books don't show those nice big "black" numbers they used to. Now, how to get control of the will of the buyers, especially in light of hard economic times and file sharing - "Hey don't we pay annual dues to the RIAA lobbying group" (say someone up top thinks), "why not put them to work and use this tool to force the market demographics back to where they were previously - if we make file sharing illegal and bring down anyone trying to market for profit in this arena as well we get a lock back on the market and gain price controls again".
The problem is that once the consumer base gets a taste of something they want for less they usually won't pay more later (standard economic inflationary forces withstanding).
So, blame the file sharers. Ignore the new market sector, ignore the economic factors. Put a face on the problem and call it P2P, get the RIAA to earn it's money in D.C. to get this crap shut down. This stance seems particularily true in light of the RIAA faithful suing Bertlesman regarding that system Napster they took down and now want to use as a market tool.
I mean really, the business model that the record companies are apparently holding to baffles me in light of their behavior to something you might think they would sieze ahold of, make their own and run run run. But, instead they seem stubornly obstinent regarding this unrealistic fixation of holding on to an out dated, and now out paced, business/market strategy.
They are going to lose. The question is - what damage will the do to themselves, the market, and Information/computer technologies and innovations in the process.
Frankly their just scape goating to explain away their incompetence in the "new economy".
Ok, so he's using an outdated PowerMac for who knows how long. Then he gets a spanking new ibook and has problems. Welcome to the world of computers. Many still use and rely on Mac's wares with similar issues and manage to solve them - did he see if there were any OS updates or patches before we decided to go on this journalistic tirade?
.com scrap heap? If a buggy OS were a reason for product extinction then Microsoft should have completely fossilized by now.
Apple is still very much on the NASDAQ radar considering what other high profile computer and technology companies are doing- Apple isn't doing that bad.
So, this guy is basically whining that he bought this ibook, didn't check to see if it was compatible with his pim, or whether any of the software he want would run on it? Sounds more like his firm bought it for him and he didn't want it so he'll write a column to bash it.
And his assertion that due to his experinces, not full compatiblity with previously owned products and buggy OS, is reason that Apple is destined for the
Lovely, now journalist are using their forums to troll - pffft!
What a dweb!